Getting Started with OpenStack

With OpenStack, you can launch as many servers as you want. It’s your own scalable and flexible virtual data center.

OpenStack is highly flexible, but this also makes it more complex. That’s why this guide will help you get started: we’ll show you how to log in to the control panel and how to launch your first instance (a virtual server in OpenStack).

Create user(s) for the Horizon dashboard

Before you can launch instances on OpenStack, you need to create a user for the Horizon dashboard.

Follow these steps to create an OpenStack user:

1. First, log in to our control panel.
2. At the top, go to “My Products” and select “OpenStack”.
3. Click on “Manage OpenStack” at the top to get an overview of your OpenStack environment.
4. Click on the “Users” tab at the top.
5. Then click on “Create New User”.
6. Enter a username, password, and email address for your user and click “Save”.

You will need these credentials to log in to the OpenStack Horizon dashboard.
Assign the user to your project(s).

Launch instances via the Horizon dashboard

Once you’ve created a user, you can log in to the OpenStack Horizon dashboard.

You can’t log in here with your standard credentials from Combell.

Follow these steps to access the Horizon dashboard:

1. First, log in to our control panel.
2. At the top, go to “My Products” and select “OpenStack”.
3. Click “Manage OpenStack” to view your OpenStack environment.
4. Click on “Manage in Horizon” to go to the Horizon dashboard.
5. Log in with the user you just created.

Follow these steps to launch instances in the Horizon dashboard:

Step 1

In the Horizon dashboard, click on “Compute” in the left-hand menu, then on “Instances”, and finally on “Launch Instance” on the right.

Step 2

You will now see a pop-up window where you configure the instance. Adjust the following settings:

• Enter a name under “Instance Name”.
• For “Availability Zone”, select “Any Availability Zone” or choose a specific one.

Tip: For extra redundancy, we recommend spreading your instances across multiple availability zones.

• Under “Count”, enter the number of instances you want to create at once.
• Click “Next” at the bottom right to go to the next section, “Source”.

Step 3

• Under “Select Boot Source”, choose “Image”.
• For “Create New Volume”, select “No”.
• Under “Available”, click the up arrow next to the operating system you want to install. The selected image will appear under “Allocated”.
• Click “Next” to continue.

A boot source is the template used to create an instance. You can choose an image, a snapshot of an instance, a volume, or a snapshot of a volume.
In a new OpenStack project, snapshots and volumes are not yet available.

A volume is additional disk space that can be attached to your instance. If you delete the instance, the volume remains—ideal for storing persistent data.

Step 4

Click the up arrow next to “SmallHD 4GB” (or another flavor) to choose a “Flavor”.

By selecting a flavor, you determine the amount of RAM, CPU cores, and disk space for the instance/VM.

View our overview of all flavors and pricing

If a flavor has insufficient RAM or disk space for the image or OS, it will be marked with an exclamation point.

After selecting a flavor, scroll down and click “Next” to continue to the “Networks” section.

Step 5

• Use the default network named “net-public”, which provides both a public IPv4 and IPv6 address.
• To assign it to your new instance, click the up arrow next to it.
• Click “Next” twice to skip the “Network Ports” section and continue configuration.

Once you’ve configured a private network, it will also be available here. Add it by clicking the arrow.
If you want your instance to be reachable only through a private network or via the Horizon console, select only your private network.

You can change the assigned networks later.

Step 6

A default “security group” is already assigned under “Allocated”.

Note: the default security group doesn’t allow ingress traffic. For that you should add additional security groups or create your own.

Step 7

Is this your first instance? Click “Create Key Pair” to generate a key pair or import your keys if you already have one.

Give it a name and click “Create Key Pair”. Your browser will automatically download a .cer file.

Note: After the instance is created, you cannot modify or add a key pair later.

For Linux the Key Pair will be added for SSH login.
For Windows instances it will generate a password for the default administrator. You can retrieve this password via “Retrieve password” in Horizon.

Finally, click “Launch Instance” at the bottom right to create your instance. Depending on the chosen operating system, it may take a few minutes before the instance is ready.

Once the instance is active and ready, you’ll see the “Status” set to “Active” and “Power State” set to “Running”.

Optionally, you can click the instance name and go to the “Console” tab to monitor its progress.